Ploch.Data.GenericRepository 2.1.0

Generic Repository and Unit of Work

Overview

The generic Repository and Unit of Work pattern implementation for .NET.

Motivation

The repository and unit of work patterns are a common way of abstracting the data access layer. They are often used in conjunction with an ORM like the Entity Framework.

While many consider EF Core a repository and unit of work, it lacks the ability to be easily mocked with a simple interfaces. Some may argue that you can test your code against an in-memory database, it is not always the best option. It also ties you to a particular ORM, even if, in some cases, you might not want to use the ORM at all.

Ploch.Data.GenericRepository Overview

The Ploch.Data.GenericRepository library provides a simple implementation of the repository and unit of work patterns.

It delivers various types of entity repositories depending on the particular use case:

• IReadRepository<TEntity> - provides read-only access to entities.
• IReadRepositoryAsync<TEntity> - provides asynchronous read-only access to entities.
• IWriteRepository<TEntity> - provides write access to entities.
• IWriteRepositoryAsync<TEntity> - provides asynchronous write access to entities.
• IReadWriteRepository<TEntity> - provides read and write access to entities.

It also provides IUnitOfWork interface and implementation which allows you to commit changes to the database.

Ploch.Data.GenericRepository.EFCore Overview

The Ploch.Data.GenericRepository.EFCore library provides an implementation of the repositories and IUnitOfWork for the Entity Framework Core. Currently, this is the only supported ORM.

Installation

You can install the Ploch.Data.GenericRepository and Ploch.Data.GenericRepository.EFCore libraries via NuGet.

nuget install Ploch.Data.GenericRepository.EFCore

Usage

1. Register the repositories and unit of work in your DI container.

var services = new ServiceCollection();
services.AddDbContext<MyDbContext>(options => options.UseSqlServer("connectionString"));
services.AddRepositories<MyDbContext>();

var serviceProvider = services.BuildServiceProvider();

// Now you can inject the repositories and unit of work into your services
public class MyService(IReadRepositoryAsync<MyEntity, int> readRepository)
{
    public async Task<IEnumerable<MyEntity>> GetEntities()
    {
        return await readRepository.GetPageAsync(1, 10);
    }
    
    public async Task<MyEntity> GetEntity(int id)
    {
        return await readRepository.GetByIdAsync(id);
    }
}

public class MySaveDataService(IUnitOfWorkk unitOfWork)
{
    public async Task SaveData(MyEntity entity, OtherEntity otherEntity)
    {
        await unitOfWork.Repository<MyEntity, int>().AddAsync(entity);
        await unitOfWork.Repository<OtherEntity, int>().UpdateAsync(otherEntity);
        
        await unitOfWork.CommitAsync();
    }
}

Custom repositories can also be created by inheriting from one of the repository classes: Code below will register you custom repository mapping from the following interfaces:

• ICustomBlogRepository to CustomBlogRepository
• IReadWriteRepositoryAsync<Blog, int> to CustomBlogRepository
• IReadRepositoryAsync<Blog, int> to CustomBlogRepository
• IWriteRepositoryAsync<Blog, int> to CustomBlogRepository As well as the synchronous versions of the interfaces:
• IQueryableRepository<Blog>
• IReadWriteRepository<Blog, int>
• IReadRepository<Blog, int>
• IWriteRepository<Blog, int>

serviceCollection.AddCustomReadWriteRepository<ICustomBlogRepository, CustomBlogRepository, Blog, int>((collection, repositoryInterface, repositoryImpl) =>
                                                                                                                   collection.AddScoped(repositoryInterface,
                                                                                                                                        repositoryImpl));

public interface ICustomBlogRepository : IReadWriteRepositoryAsync<Blog, int>
{
    Task<IList<Blog>> GetBlogWithPostsAsync(int blogId, CancellationToken cancellationToken);
}

public class CustomBlogRepository(DbContext dbContext) : ReadWriteRepositoryAsync<Blog, int>(dbContext), ICustomBlogRepository
{
    public async Task<IList<Blog>> GetBlogWithPostsAsync(int blogId, CancellationToken cancellationToken)
    {
        return await Entities.Where(b => b.BlogPosts.Any()).ToListAsync(cancellationToken);
    }
}

public class MyBlogService(IReadWriteRepositoryAsync<Blog, int> blogRepository, ICustomBlogRepository customBlogRepository)
{
    public async Task<IList<Blog>> GetBlogWithPosts(int blogId)
    {
        var blogRepository == customBlogRepository; // true
        return await customBlogRepository.GetBlogWithPostsAsync(blogId, CancellationToken.None);
    }
}

Testing

The Ploch.Data.GenericRepository library is designed to be easily testable - including unit and integration tests. For the purpose of integration testing, there is Ploch.Data.GenericRepository.IntegrationTesting package which provides a base class for integration tests that use the SqLite in-memory database (by default, but any provider can be used).

Take a look at Ploch.Data.GenericRepository.IntegrationTests project.